Puppet Museum

Location: Taipei
Year: 2003-2004
Area: 1,200 m2

This private museum is located in the historic Di-Hua district of Taipei. The site consists of an existing town house and an empty corner lot. The design requires the renovation of the townhouse and the creation of a new building annex on the corner lot. The museum has two main functions: the display of theatrical puppets from the East Asia region and performing puppet plays

The design evolved through several iterations. The main issue was to overcome the mimicking of historic facades, prescribed by the urban design guidelines, for new buildings. Neither the client or our firm wanted to do a post-modern historic facade for the new annex. In the end we devised an ordering devise by abstracting elements from the existing townhouse facade, and incorporating it to the design of the new annex. This involves the use of brick as a modular element that would connect the old with the new.